[meteorite-list] NPA 01-15-1970 (Lost City) Meteorite Fragments Fall On Oklahoma

[MARK BOSTICK]

Paper: Valley Morning Star
City: Harlingen, Texas
Date: Thursday, January 15, 1970
Page: B-8

Meteorite Fragments Fall On Oklahoma

     WASHINGTON (UPI) - Excited scientist Wednesday were studying a 21.6 
pound "star" which fell in Oklahoma 11 days ago for clues to the creation of 
the planets and perhaps of the universe itself.
     The "star" a stony meteorite, was the first ever found soon after its 
fall as the result of a deliberate attempt by man to plot the impact point 
of a visitor from space with photographs.
     Even so, recovery of the meteorite was described as a fantastic event 
for which "exceedingly lucky" would be weak understatement. Had the space 
rock bounced a small distance from where it was found, it might never have 
been discovered.
     Scientists concerned with how the solar system and its planets came 
into being are eager to get hold of meteorites as soon as possible after 
they land.
     This is because radioactivity induced in these fragments of space 
debris by millions of years of exposure to cosmic rays, which may be clues 
to how the universe was created, quickly fades after a meteorite plunges 
through the protective blanket of the earth's atmosphere.
     It was the first dramatic triumph of the Prairie Network, a system of 
16 automatic camera stations operated since 1964 in seven Midwestern states 
by the Smithsonian Institution's Astrophysical Observatory  (SAO), 
Cambridge, Mass., under a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration (NASA).

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